Chapter 2 - Ashes of the Past
The silence in the grand ballroom was suffocating. Every camera, every set of eyes, every whisper had ground to a halt.
Vincent couldn't breathe. His gaze darted frantically from the child clutching Anna’s skirt to the woman standing before him. The boy was the image of him at that age—the same stubborn chin, the same intense, calculating eyes.
"Anna..." Vincent’s voice was barely a whisper. He stepped forward, his hand reaching out again, desperate to make physical contact, to prove she wasn't a phantom engineered by his own shattered psyche. "Anna, please. What is this? How are you here?"
Before his hand could brush her arm, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a charcoal Italian suit stepped smoothly between them.
"Step back, Mr. Moretti," the man said. His voice was calm, cultured, and laced with quiet authority.
Vincent’s jaw locked. He recognized him instantly: Julian Vance, the reclusive billionaire heir to Vance Global Logistics, a man who rarely appeared in public and held more international shipping power than half of Europe.
"Get out of my way, Julian," Vincent growled, his fists curling at his sides. "You don't know what the hell you're stepping into. This is my wife."
Julian didn't blink. "Your wife died three years ago, Vincent. We all read the obituaries. This is Anna Vance, the Chief Executive Officer of our European branch and my business partner. And I suggest you lower your voice before I have private security escort you into the street."
"Anna Vance?" Vincent echoed, the name burning his tongue like acid. He tried to see past Julian's shoulder. "Anna, look at me! Look at me, damn it!"
The boy flinched at the sharpness of Vincent’s tone and buried his face in Anna’s skirts.
That small motion snapped Anna’s composure. The indifference vanished, replaced by an incandescent, terrifying rage that made Vincent involuntarily check his stride.
"Do not raise your voice near my son," Anna said. Her words were quiet, but they cut like a scalpel. She rested a protective hand over Leo’s curls, her fingers long, slender, and notably devoid of the emerald-cut diamond ring Vincent had placed on her finger five years ago.
"Our son," Vincent corrected hoarsely, his chest burning. "He's three, Anna. You were six months pregnant when the plane—"
"When you left me to burn?" Anna finished the sentence for him without a trace of hesitation.
A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers who were close enough to hear.
Sophia Carter stepped forward, her face chalk-white, the emerald fabric of her dress trembling with her tremors. "Anna... you don't understand. Vincent tried to go back! He ran toward the jet! It was an accident! He saved me because I was closer to the exit!"
Anna turned her gaze upon Sophia for the first time. It was the look one might give a cockroach scuttling across a clean kitchen counter.
"Did I ask for your testimony, Sophia?" Anna asked, her tone entirely conversational. "You were always remarkably loud when you had an audience. I see three years haven't cured your desperation."
"You b-bitch," Sophia stammered, humiliated in front of the city's elite. "You're trying to destroy him! You staged this! You hid for three years just to make a scene?"
"Julian," Anna said calmly, ignoring Sophia entirely. "Please take Leo to the car. The air in here has become remarkably foul."
"Of course," Julian nodded. He scooped the little boy effortlessly into his arms. Leo wrapped his arms around Julian's neck with practiced familiarity—a familiarity that drove an ice pick straight through Vincent's heart.
"Wait!" Vincent lunged forward, but Julian deftly sidestepped him, two towering security guards stepping into the gap.
"Don't touch my son," Anna hissed, stepping directly into Vincent's space.
She was closer now. He could smell her scent—no longer the sweet lavender she wore when she was a gentle girl from Boston who painted watercolors on their penthouse terrace. Now she smelled of sandalwood, cedar, and expensive, unapologetic power.
"Your son?" Vincent stared down at her, his throat thick with unshed tears. "You let me believe you were dead! I spent three months in a psychiatric ward, Anna! I stood over an empty casket! I drank myself into a coma every night for a year! How could you do this to me?"
Anna laughed. It was a cold, sharp, humorless sound that chilled the marrow of his bones.
"How could I do this to you?" she repeated, leaning in until her lips were inches from his ear. "Vincent, you let go of my hand. You looked me in the eye while alarms screamed, while smoke choked my lungs, while our unborn child kicked inside my belly. And you let go of my hand so you could pull *her* down the slide."
"I was coming back!" he choked out, desperation bleeding into his voice. "I promised you I would come back!"
"Promises made by cowards are worthless, Vincent," Anna whispered, her voice dropping into a dark, lethal register. "You wanted your first love. You got her. But you don't get me. And you will never, *ever* get him."
She pulled back, smoothed her velvet gown, and turned her back on him.
"Anna!" Vincent reached for her wrist.
She stopped, looking back over her shoulder with eyes that promised murder. "Touch me, Mr. Moretti, and my legal team will have a restraining order slapped on you before the sun rises. Chicago isn't your playground anymore. Welcome to the new order."
May you like
Without another word, she walked away, her head held high, leaving Vincent standing amidst the shattered champagne glass, surrounded by seven hundred people who had just witnessed the god of Chicago fall to his knees.
***
